1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cellular communications networks and, in particular, to the activation of roamer mobile station service in a home location register of a visited network.
2. Description of Related Art
Those persons who subscribe to wireless telephone service do so primarily because of the provided mobility advantage. With a cellular telephone subscription, a subscriber is freed from fixed wireline connections, and may move about a home service area covered by the cellular service provider to make and receive telephone calls. The number of persons owning mobile stations has dramatically increased in recent years. Furthermore, an increasing number of geographic areas now have access to wireless telephone service. With these increases in users and service availability, there also exists an increasing number of opportunities for subscribers to then use their mobile stations not only in their home service area, but also when traveling in areas where wireless telephone service is provided through other service providers. In such situations, the subscriber is referred to as a "roamer".
To facilitate the provision of wireless telephone service to roamers, cellular service providers enter into billing and other reciprocity service agreements which allow a subscriber to roam among and between those service areas and still make and receive telephone calls. The process of roamer registration pursuant to agreement with the system of a visited service area often occurs in a manner transparent to the subscriber. Even absent of the existence of a reciprocity service agreement, a roamer may still obtain wireless telephone service in a visited service area by making appropriate billing arrangements directly with the service provider. In each case, the subscriber must be defined (with a service profile) and connected (with the assignment of a roaming directory number) in the home location register of the visited service area. These definition and connection processes, unfortunately, are made in accordance with the prior art using manual administrative procedures. The inconvenience of requiring administrative intervention makes roamer service less convenient and desirable.
There is a need then for the automatic definition and connection of the roaming subscriber in the home location register of the visited service area to provide for more convenient access to roamer service.